A Boatload of Regrets, but Really Just One
by weirdgirl42
Summary: Takes place in the Last Man time line. Title says it all. McKeller.


_Title: A Boatload of Regrets, But Really Just One  
Author: Weirdgirl42  
Rating: K+  
Spoilers: Takes place in The Last Man timeline.  
Summary: He told her he had a boatload of regrets, but he really just had one. McKeller_

**A Boatload of Regrets, But Really Just One**

He never knew he could hurt so badly.

Sure he'd been injured before. When he was fourteen he'd fallen off the roof of his house while trying to amplify the family's television antenna. He'd broken his arm in three places and cracked two ribs. He didn't think he'd ever feel pain that badly again.

Then when he was in college he'd been hit by a car because he was too busy reading a textbook to notice that the light had turned red. That had shattered his leg and given him a concussion and replaced the roof-falling incident as number one in painful experiences.

Everything on Earth was blown out of the water by the pain he had experienced on Atlantis. Being stabbed by Koyla, attacked by the Wraith, trapped in freezing water, and just being beaten up on a regular basis had made the pain of his past seem almost trivial.

After they lost Carson and Elizabeth, after all the misery he had caused, he knew that physical pain could never do the kind of harm that emotional pain could. Before coming to Atlantis he had closed himself off to other people. Having no friends meant never having to lose them and had never had to feel the desperation that came with losing someone you loved. Atlantis had shattered that wall and he knew a whole other kind of pain.

Then John had disappeared. The only thing that made it okay was knowing that John was alive somewhere, in another time. But after that, things only got worse. One by one he watched everyone he had ever cared about leave him forever. He wanted to curl up into a little ball and sleep until it was all over. He didn't know how to cope with the hurt. He just wanted to feel something other than pain again.

The first time Jennifer touched him, really touched him, not just to check for injury or as a friendly pat on the arm. The first time she had touched his hand and grasped his fingers with her own he felt the pain begin to ease. As though she had found the pressure valve and was slowly releasing the hurt he had kept so deep inside. The first time he touched his lips to hers and he remembered how it had been to live without a constant weight in his chest. The first time they shared a bed and he knew that she was the salve for his inner wounds. She could make him feel so many things when for what seemed like forever, all he'd felt was pain.

He never knew he could hurt so badly.

He hardly remembered those days with the tests and the doctors and finally the SGC and the diagnosis that confirmed his greatest fear. He hardly remembered coming up with the idea to change the timeline. It was all a blur of underground hallways and florescent x-ray screens and beeping hospital machines.

What he remembered was the feel of her hand in his. The way she had begged and then ordered him not to waste his life even though they both knew he wouldn't listen. He remembered the way she struggled for breath that last day. And how she must have known it was her time because she looked at him sitting next to the bed and smiled. Then she shifted slowly and patted the space beside her. He remembered climbing into the bed beside her and folding her into his arms one last time. He remembered how her voice sounded so weak when she whispered that she would always love him.

He remembered the feel of her hair against his face as he cried into her hair when she was gone. He knew he wouldn't obey her wishes. Even if it meant never getting the past year. He loved her with everything he was and he would make sure she would never go through such a terrible fate. He would change the timeline.

Because he never knew he could hurt so badly, and he wanted to make it so he never would.

_The End_

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